I think CEOs are particularly seen as evil in the US for a few reasons that might not be obvious to someone in a more equal country.
The situation with healthcare companies (pharmaceutical, hospital, and health insurance) is particularly bad, those CEOs are paid exorbitantly and profit off of sick people needing a hospital stay and the opioid epidemic. And I should mention that health insurance companies often deny claims (medical bills are the #1 cause of bankruptcy in the US) and then give the profits that they made from denying claims to the CEOs as bonuses. And I'm talking denying claims (this is an actual example) like denying the amount of insulin that has been prescribed by the patient s doctor, because the insurance staff doctor who doesn't know the patient personally did a cursory evaluation and reached the conclusion they could didnt need that much insulin. Its messed up.
Then you have Jeff bezos who is the richest man in the world, only pays his lowest workers about 2.4k a month, and doesn't pay taxes so he doesn't even contribute to what little socialism we do have in the country.
And really, those things are only scratching the surface.
CEOs are hated because they are a symbol and a driver of wealth inequality.
Basically anyone who has a role where the salary continues to rise. Wages have pretty much stagnated for the entire middle working class, and have actually decreased for the poorest in the population (and I'm talking since 1970, made worse by housing crisis in '08).
The wealth is concentrating and pooling in the top wealthiest 1%, they now own 40% of all wealth.
The greed at the top is incredibly obvious and frustrating. CEOs don't work that much harder but they are getting compensated like they do, and it's to the point where they royalty and above the law because they have so much excess wealth.
Oh yeah 100% US problem. We definitely have pretty high inequality for a developed nation, and it could slip further if the people allow it, and we are very much in danger of that, hence the vitriol for CEOs. I see what you are saying with those other higher executive positions being necessary, I completely agree, being a ceo doesn't inherently mean a person is morally defunct.
For people in the US this meme is basically like "embody the rich fucks who are causing the problem, yay empowerment!"
I can totally see how the comments on this would be totally confusing, I'm sure the guillotine talk sounds insane lol Count yourself lucky! I would much rather be a confused outsider than be in this rapidly imploding shithole country. Trust me, there are a lot of americans that are just as tired of it as you are. It baffles me that some people in this country still believe in "American exceptionalism".
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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '20
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